Platform and policy is one thing, but a total lack of integrity just goes too far for me. Did anyone ever believe that any of those clowns actually thought turning down $400,000,000.00 a year was a sound fiscally conservative decision? OF COURSE NOT!
I think the mortgage deduction is bad policy - it rewards people for buying as much house as they can. Whether they can afford it or not doesn't matter. The more house you have, the bigger your tax savings! Woe be the person who would be financially better off renting or living small. BUT --- am I going to turn down my mortgage deduction? Nope.
Yet Oklahoma is apparently rich enough to stand on our principles and turn down $400,000,000 a year in healthcare subsidy. Starting next year the net to our state will "only" be ~$360,000,000 a year as may have to pick up 10% of the cost. Add in our fun "multiplier" of 4.3 (governments LOVE to tout multipliers for their other economic programs) and
Oklahoma will see a total economic impact of $1,720,000,000.00 per year. That's a greater impact on the state than the
Cherokee Nation. How fast would we throw money at any industry that was bringing in a $1.7 Billion annual economic impact, even if they demanded $40mil a year in incentives?
We're a poor state. We are an unhealthy state. What the hell are we doing turning down 10:1 dollars for healthcare?
But I have a great idea, lets give the wealthiest people tax breaks, the wealthiest companies giant subsidies and tax breaks, then raise taxes on the poor and middle class people, cut their tax credits, then eviscerate education. Then just sit back and wait for prosperity to roll in.
Shenanigans. No one believes what they are selling is a cure-all. They know it's poison, but so long as they can take their profits and haul their chuck wagon out of town before people grab the pitchforks they'll keep selling their medicine.